Instead of studying for exams and going out to parties, some Princeton freshmen could be spending their first year after high school overseas helping others. Earlier this week, Princeton University announced that it is working on a program to send about 100 students, or 10 percent of its entering class, abroad for a gap-year program before the students come to campus.

Last night, about 15 protesters gathered outside of a Hillel-Steinhardt conference room that was hosting a dinner and discussion with the two former Israeli soldiers who have put on a controversial exhibition of photographs about the Israeli occupation. Mostly members of the Zionist Freedom Alliance, the protesters sang Jewish songs and refused to join the discussion going on inside, citing philosophical differences with the exhibit, called Breaking the Silence.

In 2006, 2.8 million college students gave almost 300 million hours of volunteer service worth more than $5.6 billion. Last week, Penn was among six colleges and universities nationwide to receive presidential recognition for its contributions. The University was one of three recipients of the 2007 Presidential Award for General Community Service in the second annual President's Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll, along with Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

At Penn, students are constantly reminded to think globally. One Penn alum took this advice literally, and he is now surrounded by 192 countries on a daily basis. Wharton MBA alum Hugh Dugan is not a perpetual globe-trotter - he is a United States delegate to the United Nations and member of the United States Diplomatic Corps.

Last week's meeting of the Spruce Hill Zoning Committee, which discussed plans for an 11-story extended-stay hotel at 40th and Pine streets, seems to have created only a greater divide between developers and the community on an already divisive issue. Nearby residents expressed strong disapproval of the hotel at the meeting, while developers heaped praises on the design.

Yesterday, some of Penn's most powerful decision-makers, the University Board of Trustees, weighed in on key University projects. Six committees met and discussed prevalent issues in the first day of the board's winter meeting, one of three meetings held each year.

Checking Facebook anywhere in Philadelphia will still soon be possible, even though the company running the city's wireless network is dropping out. Last week, Earthlink announced its plans to sell its municipal wireless business - which includes Philadelphia's program.

For Carol Baniqued, a Wharton junior described as a "TV addict" by her closest friends, the Writer's Guild of America Strike could have symbolized the apocalypse. But now that it's over, Penn students are realizing that while they missed TV, the strike wasn't as bad as they thought.

Fired up! Ready to go? Last December, Iowa and New Hampshire were the centers of the political universe, expected to select the two presidential nominees and let the country get ready for the general election. But that didn't happen, and nearly two months later, the Democratic nomination battle continues, leaving candidate organizations in Ohio, Texas and Pennsylvania scrambling for a cohesive strategy and as many volunteers as they can get.

Shortly after the 2004 presidential election, Republican political strategist Karl Rove found himself on the list of Barbara Walters' Top 10 Most Fascinating People. It has been a few years, but at Irvine Auditorium last night, Rove proved people are still fascinated by what he has to say.

Penn may accept a greater number of applicants regular decision and from the waiting list this year, largely in response to Harvard and Princeton Universities' decisions to eliminate their early-acceptance programs, interim Dean of Admissions Eric Kaplan said.

Though former Penn Neurosurgery professor Tracy McIntosh has already served his original sentence for the 2002 sexual assault of his college roommate's niece, this likely won't have any effect on the harsher sentence that was handed down Feb. 13, legal experts say.

Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences voted unanimously last week to post their finished academic papers online for free, and a Penn Faculty Senate committee is now discussing the merits of such proposals. The Penn Senate Committee on Students and Educational Policy is scheduled to discuss the possibility of adopting a similar plan, said Faculty Senate Chairman Larry Gladney.

The announcement late last week raising the minimum Ph.D. student stipend by 6.7 percent has generally received positive feedback among the Penn graduate population, though students are urging the University to do even more. The increase, which will take effect in September, raised the minimum stipend for students completing 9-month programs from $18,000 to $19,200.

Yesterday at Skirkanich Hall, a crowded computer-science class struggled with questions about programming code until Engineering sophomore Isaiah Greene explained the answers. For Greene, this wasn't a chance to impress his teacher. It was a chance to teach the class, which in this case was comprised of 12 high-school sophomores from Philadelphia's Science Leadership Academy.

Spending a little extra on a can of soda might actually be worth more than you think. Many of the College House convenience stores - which sell everything from childhood relics like Dunkaroos to urgently-needed late-night coffee - mark up their prices in order to attempt to break even.

Last week's shooting at Northern Illinois University - when a gunman fired into a lecture hall, killing five people before turning the gun on himself - has brought the issue of campus security into the spotlight. But as major tragedies, such as the NIU shooting and last April's massacre at Virginia Tech, are difficult to predict, universities' efforts must focus on response preparation, Penn officials and outside experts say.